Eliminating the Impossible
by Barefoot XO
Summary: After the debacle in the Arctic ends Sheldon and Leonard's friendship, Sheldon discovers a new friend who will truly expand his universe. Not slash.


I don't own Buffy the Vampire Slayer or the Big Bang Theory. They belong to Joss Whedon and Chuck Lorre respectively.

The following fic contains spoilers for 'BBT S3E1: The Electric Can Opener Fluctuation'.

This chapter is designed to set the scene. Characters of the Buffy-verse will begin appearing in Chapter 2.

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**_Chapter I: The Roommate Agreement Disintegration_**

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_When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth… ~ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle_

Sheldon Cooper, B.S., M.S., M.A., Ph.D., Sc.D., _OMG_, felt like his heart was about to explode. Not his biological heart, of course, though he made a mental note to get a cardiogram just in case. Rather it was Sheldon's metaphorical heart, which so many people were convinced did not exist, which had taken a blow. So many people accused him of being a Vulcan without truly understanding the core of the accusation they were making. The others believed he lacked emotions. Sheldon, however, was not emotionless. No, much like all Vulcans, including Spock, Sheldon had adopted the Vulcan practice of Kolinahr and thus kept his emotions tightly bound.

There was a price for this. Among Vulcans this emotional suppression caused the repressed emotions to erupt like a particularly violent volcano every seven years. The Pon Farr. In Vulcans, the Pon Farr was represented mainly through lust and violence. It was a chance for those emotions to truly run wild. It was also a source of great shame to the usually collected race. Sheldon, who proudly practiced the Earth man's equivalent of Kolinahr was now paying the piper. The betrayal of Leonard, Howard and Raj up in the Arctic was causing his emotional control to suffer a serious collapse. Even now, Sheldon was straining to control the sheer, acidic rage which threatened to overwhelm him.

'Kolinahr,' Sheldon's mind whispered. 'Purge all emotion. Let the rage cool. Let logic rule the realm once more. Only through the application of cool logic can equilibrium return.' Sheldon shut his eyes and calmed his rapid, unsteady breathing. 'Apply logic and the world will make sense again.' Sheldon seriously considered going home to Texas and abandoning everything. 'No! You were meant to bring order to this troubled galaxy!' Sheldon froze. It was true. He had seen it since he was a small child. His brilliance was desperately needed. He was on the path to helping people understand the universe. There was nothing more important than that. Nothing!

Sheldon quickly discarded the idea of leaving. He had too much to do. Even if people's belief in him had been shaken by the actions of Leonard, Wolowitz and Koothrappali, which Sheldon was certain it had been, he was still needed. The next inclination he had was to collapse his entire social circle and start fresh. 'Apply logic. Do not dismiss all of them out of hand.' Sheldon nodded to himself.

Penny… Penny was safe. The only thing she was guilty of in this debacle was poor taste in sexual partners. If Sheldon started dismissing people on that basis, than he would feel compelled to dismiss virtually everyone in existence from consideration. As tempting as that was, it was excessive.

Howard and Raj… Those two were surprisingly the most difficult. Their betrayal cut him deeply. Still, neither man was his best friend. Neither man was bound by any agreements beyond the basic social contracts by which everyone is bound. They had broken numerous social contracts though, and severely. The decision came. Three strikes and banishment. If they took his class, then they would be brought back in. If not, that was their choice. Compared to what they had done, Penny's early sending Internet banality simply paled.

Leonard… That decision was both the easiest and the most difficult. On the one hand, Leonard was his best friend. On the other hand, Leonard was his best friend and had still engaged in the most base of betrayals. Worse still, Leonard had led the betrayal. Goodness knew that Wolowitz and Koothrappali were not leaders, no matter how much they liked to pretend they were. No, Leonard had lead them in this betrayal.

Leonard had violated numerous tenets of the roommate and friendship agreement. Worst of all, though, Leonard had broken the 'Intolerable Clause' of the roommate agreement. The Intolerable Clause was a series of five acts which would immediately void the roommate agreement in favour of the offended party. The very _first_ act mentioned in the intolerable clause was deliberate sabotage of the other roommate's work. Sheldon's emotional side was confused between his deep friendship with Leonard, which wanted him to forgive, and his vengeful feelings of betrayal, which wanted him to string Leonard up by his own intestines. Sheldon took a moment to marvel at the violence his mind was able to conjure up, before moving on. His logical side was not confused at all. Leonard was out. Leonard could no longer be trusted. Their friendship and cohabitation was over…

Howard and Raj watched in fascination and horror at the unprecedented level of emotion that crossed Sheldon's face as he held himself up using his white board, almost clinging to it like it was a life preserver, barely keeping his head above water that would otherwise surely have drowned him. Howard, in particular, was shocked to see the dark expression of wrath contorting Sheldon's face into a frightening parody of Sheldon's usual look of dismissive aloofness. Other emotions flashed across Sheldon's face, sadness being the second-most prominent after wrath. Finally, the roller-coaster ride they were on had ended and Sheldon's face froze into a cool mask that seemed a little more frigid than was normal for him. Howard managed to summon the courage to speak. "Look, Sheldon… we're really sorry about this…"

"Bizui!"* Sheldon's eyes appeared to harden into chips of ice before their very eyes. "Your apology is insufficient. You have both lied to me maliciously… Strike 1… You have bother sabotaged my work… Strike 2… You have both failed to warn me about the aforementioned sabotage in a timely manner, causing me to publicly humiliate and discredit myself in the eyes of the scientific community…" Sheldon paused for a long moment and glared fiercely at the two miscreants. "In case you are wondering, that was sure as shootin', Strike 3… You are banished."

"Sheldon, we…"

"Banished!" This time Sheldon's voice held a hint of barely restrained emotion.

Raj shuddered. The emotion in Sheldon's voice was disconcerting to say the least. It reminded him of Sarek crying**. Raj grabbed Howard's arm and pulled him from the apartment. This was beyond a simple apology. At this point, Raj wondered if even taking Sheldon's class would be sufficient.

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*Knock knock knock* "Leonard…" *Knock knock knock* "Leonard…" *Knock knock knock* "Leonard…"

Penny Hansen*** broke away from her enthusiastic embrace with Leonard Hofstadter, mentally sighing. Of course, Sheldon would interrupt her reunion with Leonard. Leonard's soft cursing that he 'could not catch a break' felt both faintly amusing and faintly insulting, though she was not entirely sure why. "We should answer it, Leonard."

Leonard shook his head resolutely. "If we ignore him, maybe he'll go away."

"I'm not going to go away. I'm going to keep knocking until one of you answers."

Penny sighed and opened the door, ignoring Leonard's pout and his kicked puppy expression. Sheldon was like a dog with a bone. He wouldn't release it until he was all done gnawing on it. She was not about to make out with Leonard while Sheldon was beating a tattoo on her door. It was better to get whatever the whackadoodle wanted out of the way. "What is it, Sweetie?"

Penny was confronted with by an unusually stern version of Sheldon. That was an impressive feat. Sheldon had always been pretty stern. She hadn't known he could achieve an even sterner facial expression than his usual one. "I apologize for interrupting, Penny, but you have an entire lifetime to continue making poor choices and I need to converse with Dr. Hofstadter, post haste."

Penny's shock at hearing Sheldon refer to Leonard by his title, rather than his first name, combined with Sheldon leading with a genuine-sounding apology, stopped Penny from focusing too much on his shot about her making poor choices. Leonard, however, was sensing impending coitus and ignored all the warning signs that Sheldon was oh so subtly displaying. "What do you want, Sheldon?"

Sheldon's facial expression was practically carved from granite. "Dr. Hofstadter, were you involved in the falsification of data during my expedition to the magnetic north pole?"

The experimental physicist actually looked faintly chagrined at that. "Yes, but…"

"No! The 'but' stops here, Dr. Hofstadter!" Sheldon loudly proclaimed, actually holding up his hand as if to stop the explanation physically. "It is with great regret that I tender notice that you are in violation of Part 2, Section A of the roommate agreement, which reads thusly: Part 2, the Intolerable Clause: Roommates agree that in the event of one of following five intolerable acts being committed by one of the signatories of the roommate agreement, the transgressor forfeits that months rent and is required to immediately vacate the apartment. Section A: A roommate did knowingly sabotage the work of the other roommate." Sheldon held up the roommate agreement like it was a sword of old. "Is this not your signature, Dr. Hofstadter?"

Leonard paled faintly. "Yes, but…"

Sheldon shook his head resolutely. "No, Leonard. I'm afraid this is a violation of the roommate agreement that cannot be overlooked. Our cohabitation is ended." Sheldon turned slightly to engage Penny in conversation again. "Thank you for your time, Penny. You may now get back to your mistake." With that, Sheldon turned on his heel and left the apartment.

Leonard and Penny stood there for a long moment, both trying to process all that had happened in the last fifteen minutes… Leonard turned a hopeful gaze upon Penny. "I don't suppose you would be willing to take in a roommate?"

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Author's Notes:

* 'Bizui' essentially means shut up in Mandarin. While Sheldon is far from an expert in Mandarin, his fervent devotion to Firefly should have rendered him an expert in the short litany of Mandarin phrases that are used in that fandom.

** Sarek cries in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation (S3E23: Sarek) due to a disease which prevents him from properly controlling his emotions. For a Vulcan to cry was considered very disconcerting.

*** Penny's last name is made up for the purposes of this fic. She does not have a canon last name as of yet.

Next chapter will feature Sheldon's new roommate and how that comes about. I Thanks for reading.

Jasper


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